The present invention relates to a data relay system for accessing large quantities of data, of any voltage level, either discrete or analog, from a single source or host device, typically a computer.
Typical approaches to accessing data by a computer may be parallel or serial. When utilizing the parallel method, a special interface device must be custom designed to the specific requirements of each computer. Each data point must be individually wired to the parallel interface.
Each data bit corresponds to a computer input bit which limits the capacity of the system interface. The parallel interface must be in the vicinity of the computer to reduce the interference effects of electrical noise. When utilizing serial interfacing, each serial channel is customarily interfaced to a single device which preconditions the data electrically. Serial interfacing above the simplest level requires communication protocols by the computer for selecting the correct data. The range of the remote data acquisition is often restricted by the electrical conditioning of the serial line.